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several days or weeks. Another purpose of the huts
was as rest stops for day hikers who ascended from
the villages and resorts for a day trip to the huts
and their immediate environments.
The rapid increase in mountaineering since the
Second World War has resulted in great pressures
on the environment as millions of tourists try to
climb the European Alps or enjoy the scenery. Soil
compaction and erosion, damage to vegetation and
disturbance to wildlife are but a few physical
effects. The increase in demand also led to an
expansion of the accommodation facilities,
accompanied by an improvement in the standards
and available facilities such as running hot water,
gondolas and luxury accommodations. This phenomenon
of serviced huts is probably the primary
distinguishing criterion to mountaineering in other
parts of the world, where such facilities rarely exist
and are even frowned upon. On a world scale,
mountaineering is obviously less important than
beach-oriented tourism. Nonetheless, for some
destination countries such as Austria or Nepal,
mountaineering provides one of the tourist's
primary activities and attractions. This form of
tourism also includes a competitive element,
namely the competition of human against nature
and/or oneself, quite frequently resulting in serious
accidents.
Further reading
Unsworth, W. �1992) The Encyclopedia of Mountaineering,
London: Hodder and Stoughton.
MARTIN OPPERMANN, AUSTRALIA
multidimensional scaling
Multidimensional scaling �MDS) is a class of
techniques for discovering the latent structure
underlying a set of observations and is used to
derive or to confirm a scale in a spatial configuration.
It provides a way to visualise the structure of
observations �such as perceptual mapping). Multidimensional
scaling has a very close relationship
with unidimensional scaling techniques �like the
Guttman scale). However, MDS is used to derive
an R-dimensional spatial configuration rather than
a one-dimensional �linear) configuration. Furthermore,
each axis in a multidimensional space is
considered a uni-dimensional scale.
Multidimensional scaling derives a spatial configuration
of objects based on proximity data. These
data can be measures of spatial distance �the actual
distance between different cities) or judgements of
similarity �or dissimilarity) among objects �the
number of contacts among people). Metric MDS
refers to proximity data with either an interval or
ratio property, whereas non-metric MDS refers to
analysis based on rank-ordered data. Recent
developments in MDS such as INDSCAL and
INCLUS have extended two-way estimations to
three-way solutions which allow one to estimate
individual differences or temporal variations.
In order to best interpret the MDS configuration,
rotations are useful. Procedures such as
linear regression can be used to regress the
coordinate scores of each object �or independent
variable) onto those original proximity data
�dependent variables). A high coefficient regardless
of sign suggests the interpretation of meaning
for each co-ordinate. This procedure provides
results similar to the structural coefficients provided
in canonical correlation or the factor scores
in factor analysis. Multidimensional scaling has
many applications in tourism research. For
example, it is used to describe consumer visitation
patterns, to classify leisure activity types, as well
as to explore the market position of alternative
destinations.
See also: correspondence analysis; marketing
research; perceptual mapping
Further reading
multidimensional scaling 397
Gartner, W. �1989) `Tourism image: attribute
measurement of state tourism products using
multidimensional scaling technique', Journal of
Travel Research 28�2): 16±20. �Provides an example
of using MDS to understand images of
tourism products and the underlying attributes.)
Kruskal, J.B. and Wish, M. �1978) Multidimensional
Scaling, Sage University Paper on Quantitative
Applications in the Social Sciences, series no.
07±011, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.
�Presents a detailed discussion on the multi